Most TBs are tiny things by design, so as to fit inside the majority of geocache containers without much trouble, and to be easy for the next volunteer to transport to another geocache…some, however, are completely the opposite, enormous and heavy things, awkward and difficult to move.
Mega-TBs are purposely difficult to transport from cache to cache. They are unwieldy things, bulky and heavy and impossible to fit inside all but the biggest caches. Obviously, these things don’t happen by accident, people choose to make them; people also choose to seek them out to move from cache to cache. The question is, why? Why would somebody choose to create or seek and move such monstrosities? To find the answer to that, I did a little research while meditating on the following quotes:
"The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly." – Thomas Paine
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” – John F. Kennedy
I love Travel Bugs! They are just a great idea: pick an item to send from cache to cache, come up with a goal, send it on its way, and watch it make its way one person/cache at a time.
In any pursuit that challenges us, there must be an element of reward or else we would not pursue the challenge. Sometimes the reward is extrinsic, like the praise of our peers, or more tangibly, like a paycheck. Other times, the reward is intrinsic, something wholly within yourself (the good feeling you get from a good deed that goes unnoticed). More often though, there is complex combination of rewards tied to any pursuit, varying from person to person.
Geocaching is a great example: I geocache because I like getting exercise, I enjoy receiving praise from my peers, it feels good to belong to a community, I derive pleasure from finding the cache (s) as the result of a well-planned outing and using the GPSr correctly, I covet the little treasures left for me by people I’ll never meet, and many more factors.
For some geocachers, it may be more about the numbers, and there even may be some for whom the numbers really don’t matter (I have trouble with this concept, as competition is as much a part of me as my lungs are, but I allow for the possibility). Travel Bugs are a part of the geocaching pursuit, and thus are a part of the reward for each of us in our individual way; and that (finally) is where Mega-TBs come in to our story.
Mega-TBs are simply a different way to challenge (and reward) ourselves while geocaching. If moving along a TB that can fit into your shirt pocket does not provide you with sufficient reward to make you want to do it, then you might want to try one that wouldn’t fit in a Cooper Mini; instead of tossing a couple ounces of TB into your backpack, how about straining your back with a Mega-TB that weighs 20 pounds (or 60…or 200)?
Mega-TBs are out there, and they travel more than you would imagine. Some have been around for years, and have traveled thousands of miles; while others remain in the spot they were originally placed. Their appeal is to a large degree due to the thing that sets them apart from more ordinary TBs, the difficulty you are going to have moving them around. Mega-TBs are an interesting and challenging part of the game, and they are here to stay (just you try to muscle them out).
I have included links to a number of different Mega-TBs below, so that you can check them out, read through the logs, and see if one is near enough for you to go after.
